SAPA is among the 722 virtuous Italian businesses that best managed to combine growth in the numbers and operational efficiency. On 25th September Antonio Affinita received the award from the SME Observatory of Global Strategy.
Dear Engineer,
Today I would like to share a small but great victory with you that pertains SAPA and you, as well.
A couple of days ago, my brother Antonio, executive board member at SAPA went to Milan for a very special occasion.A
SAPA was awarded the 2019 Excellent Business Award by the SME Observatory, which has been running for ten years, for the first time.
Excellent is a word I haven’t heard in years.
I remember those rare occasions when my primary school teacher wrote “excellent” on my test with a red pen and an exclamation mark.
Yes, I admit it didn’t happen very frequently, but when it did happen, I felt very proud and I felt like I was ten feet off the ground. Excellent was the highest mark because it was not even part of the marking scale and when you got one, it meant: no mistakes, you are special.
At least to me.
And to be honest, this award awakened some of these old feelings in me. Here is why.
Italian excellent businesses are identified by the SME Observatory of Global Strategy, a strategic and financial consultancy firm.
Global Strategy analysed 10,800 Italian businesses all over the country whose production value is between € 20 and 250 million for the manufacturing and services sectors and between € 20 and 500 million for the trade sectors.
From the initial 10,000+ businesses, 722 can now boast of the “Excellent Business” title: these are companies that over the past five years, at the aggregate level, were able to combine growth (68% increase in Production Value over 5 years) with strong operational efficiency (the Return on Sales index basically doubled from 6.3% in 2013 to 12.2% in 2017); these companies basically make up the backbone of the Italian production excellence from North to South.
In short? A nice pat on the shoulder and a great sense of achievement indeed.
Earlier on I said that this award is about you, too.
The event that took place in Milan was called “Sustainability and Value Creation. A combination to be pursued.” This year the event was in fact dedicated to analysing the relation between Italian SME’s and ESG issues (Environmental, Social, Governance).
If you think about it, it is quite incredible. Up until not long ago, it would have been unthinkable that a company that produces car parts would be awarded for being sustainable and for being attentive to issues related to sustainable development. But that’s what’s happened.
And it is a success story.
As I’m sure you know, SAPA specialised in the One-Shot® Method, which to date is the world’s fastest method to produce car parts with:
- Less weight
- Less waste
- Shorter time;
- High quality standards
But we also decided to direct our efforts towards another aspect, i.e. using advanced recyclable polymers and bio-composite materials.
Over the years, SAPA decided to push innovation in production towards extremely high standards and this could happen thanks to our internal research sector, the Innovation Engineering department, which works tirelessly to make this happen continuously and in very short time to meet our customers’ needs.
In short, we made a sector that by definition is very far away from the green movement into a super sustainable sector.
So sustainable that we were awarded for this.
I completely agree with what my brother said on this topic: “Sustainability in all its facets has always been the core of the philosophy that underpins SAPA’s actions and that led us to secure ourselves an important position within the Italian business community”
And not only that.
The philosophy on which the One-Shot® Method rests also contains the other aspects that this event was about: environmental sustainability and the importance of the chain, but also social sustainability and corporate governance.
These three aspects have always gone hand in hand for us, ever since my father Angelo created this company with the idea that people would always be at the core of it. This was his motto.
And this remained of the utmost importance for us: paying attention to the environment, to the community around us and putting these aspects at the forefront is essential for us.
Earlier on I was telling you about my primary school teacher. What legacy is left of those days?
The happiness and the pride on what we do.
What has changed?
The mistakes. I have made a lot of mistakes; I am still making them and I’m sure I’ll make them in future.
It took us a lot of time and effort to design this revolutionary method that really could change the way you think of car parts.
We wanted to be unique. And in fact, we are.
The most incredible thing about the One-Shot® Method (I am going to tell you because today I feel like laying my cards on the table) is that it works for any part.
Precisely because it is a method, and not a product.
So, all the advantages it brings along become somehow universal.
Are you wondering what they are?
Here are some of them:
- Less time: you can maximise production and say goodbye to downtime
- It can be applied to any type of part: this will certainly impress your boss and it also means that you will no longer have to search far and wide for new solutions
- More lightweight parts: no more sleepless nights worrying about meeting the Horizon 2020 standards
- You’ll still have high quality standards: you will able to guarantee a groundbreaking product that your customers love
- It goes beyond lean production: you will meet the sector’s needs effortlessly.
How is all this possible?
It is thanks to the optimisation of the production phases and a leaner process.
In this way, what you used to produce in several phases, can now be done in just one phase. One-Shot.
If you would like to find out more, our customer care department is at your disposal: hereunder you’ll find a form to request to be contacted.
We are very proud of the way we’ve come, and acknowledgements like this one demonstrate that making the difference is truly possible.
Kind regards
Giovanni Affinita,
Executive Director and Member of the Board of Directors at SAPA
